Tag: Simon Anton Nino Diego Baena

Under the shade
of these cumulus clouds
here the earth greets you
with blinding light, but
the rain is always in
your somnolent eyes.
And you gather something
out of the viridian sea:
a handful of shells
for your dead loved ones
a fistful of sand
for your city of rust.
You hear flatlines
in the distance
as the horizon blooms
with a procession of waves—
beneath the fire rainbow
a sailboat drifts
towards carabao island
like a slow
moving funeral.

—
Simon Anton Nino Diego Baena, originally from Bais City, Negros Oriental, is now based in Iligan. Some of his works have already been published in Mascara Literary Review, Philippines Free Press, The James Franco Review, The Blue Hour Magazine, among others.

Everything seems smaller from a distance.
Samal island is shrouded in silence.
The calm sea is like her smile at night—
I really miss her warmth in my bed.
But now I am drifting, alone,
in the stillness of these waters.
And the stars above give no comfort.

—
Simon’s poetry has been published in Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic magazine, Red River review, Easlit, and Kabisdak online.

The city plaza is full of children
in the afternoon. The acacia trees
stand proud where I enjoy sketching
the light, fading behind the arid mountains,
the glittering haciendas, as I listen
to the shrieking cicadas every sunset.
The monsoon is still far away.
As you can see, the summer burns
intensely in the clear blue firmament—
yes, I know that everything in this world
is grounded with grief of History.
It seems here and everywhere
life moves like a spiraling leaf,
ending in its picturesque fall.

Every night, in this city,
my peripatetic eyes seek
phantoms on ceilings,
where darkness gazes
upon my trembling body.
After the clock strikes
twelve, the moon is pale
from loss of blood.
The dogs begin to howl.
There are no clattering footsteps
nor human voices, only
the whispering wind speaks
of cyanide and tears:
for the night here in Bais
is an ocean that drowns
rainbows and luxury ships.
For the night here in Bais
is a gathering of poets
who wail before streetlights
and broken bottles of beer—
Naked
I lay
surrounded
by sugar canes
and decrepit ancestral houses.
Here in Bais,
night is longer
than day because
the sun hides
in shame.

As always, the same old sun rises
over my weary eyes in the city
of desiccated peasants and wooden caskets.
The whistle of maya birds echo, again
and again, in my garden. The same apparition
of faces remains sullen in the starving streets.
The same zephyr sways
the leaves of sugar canes and water apple trees. Here,
where everything is filtered by my quotidian breath,
is a horror of mangled realities
of a past within faded photographs—
Every morning, my shadow has the scent of ancestral houses.

—
Simon Anton Nino Diego Baena is an undergraduate student of MSU-IIT, Iligan city.
Originally from Bais, Negros Oriental, now based in Iligan. Some of his poems have already been published in Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic magazine, Eastlit online literary journal, and Kabisdak online.

Yes, there is stillness in darkness, for there is
beauty in light. Yesterday, the world showed me
its wound in the chest of a homeless child, drenched
with rain, begging for crumbs outside the door
of the ancient cathedral, where we converge
and pray on what can never be, whenever we try
to pull the rusty nails from our palms. And there
is grief, for there is always loss, in life. Every morning,
during holy week around 8 am, after a mug of coffee,
the maya birds stop over my balcony to sing a song
I could never ever decipher. And that is a miracle
by itself. Of knowing there are limits. Sometimes
there is a sentiment of defeat at the peak of triumph.
Sometimes, I seek god, in the twirling smoke
of every cigarette I consume, while I wait
with awe for the sky to be filled with stars.

—
Simon Anton Nino Diego Baena is an undergraduate student of MSU-IIT, Iligan city. Originally from Bais, Negros Oriental, now based in Iligan. Some of his poems have already been published in the Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic magazine, and Eastlit online literary journal, the upcoming issue 17 of Kartika review, ODDproyekto, and Kabisdak online.

The light is heavy like the weight
of an open wound. And I hear
no sound of laughter nor prayer,
only the coughs and puffs of smokers
outside the haunting streets of Bais.
The landscape remains blistered.
Rainless for days. And my throat
wants something more than water—
every morning, the world is in pursuit
of harmony, the balance between
the wave and the ash and the dissonance
of speech, my father used to tell me.
What is visible to the mind is the shoreline
of guilt with no waves nor gulls to kiss
it. And the pebble in front of the acacia tree
remains indifferent, while I am burdened
by these artifacts of guilt. I know exactly
where in my memories my scars are
located. Inside the old chapel,
I feel the presence of the void. God
does not speak to me. Not even
in a language of metaphors.

—
Simon Anton Nino Diego Baena is an undergraduate student of MSU-IIT, Iligan city.
Originally from Bais, Negros Oriental, now based in Iligan. Some of his poems have already been published in Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic magazine, and Eastlit online literary journal